20
WE DON’T QUESTION THE WISDOM OF RAINBOWS
THE OLD ABBOT OF THE Monastery of the Demon Fortress of the Oracle King knelt beside the calm pool at the base of the Hidden Falls. He had traveled for weeks, eating only a grain of rice a day. He was tired, but his spirit felt fresh and young. He had reached the goal of his pilgrimage, the place that had appeared to him in a dream. He removed a small butter lamp from his bag and set it on the ground.
“For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too stay to heal the misery of the world,” he chanted. It was his favorite saying from the sacred texts. He bowed his head to the earth and rose again to light the lamp.
The flame flickered in the cool air. Behind him, the Hidden Falls rose hundreds of feet, and, in the mist where the water crashed into a pool at its base, a rainbow blossomed. The abbot smiled.
For months, the monks at his monastery had been afflicted by horrible nightmares. Though his monastery had a terrible-sounding name, it was a place of peace, reflection and learning. There were no demons there, and it looked more like a medieval spa than a fortress. No one actually knew how it had come to have that name, but for centuries the monks had prayed and studied there, hidden from the modern world. Outsiders imagined the place was Shangri-La, as if such a place existed. To the abbot it was simply home.
But all that changed a few months ago. One of their monks, a powerful oracle who channeled the spirit of their protector, Dorjee Drakden, had vanished. Then the nightmares spread like wildfire.
Now, hundreds of sleepless monks were wandering the halls. Everyone was so tired and nervous from the dreams that small arguments turned into ugly fights very quickly. If a monk coughed too loudly or ommed too quietly, all of their nonviolence training went right out the window. Fists would fly. The abbot had never thought he would have to break up fights or treat bloody noses. He felt like a nurse and a referee more than a wise and learned abbot. It was a terrible situation.
The monks’ nightmares were all the same, and the abbot suffered from them too. In the dream, Dorjee Drakden, their great protector, was locked in a cage, helpless, as an army of men marched across the land, setting fire to all in their path. The leader of that army carried a giant scroll wrapped in chains, and scholars threw their sacred texts in front of him. He stomped them into the dirt.
“Has the protector abandoned us?” frightened monks would ask the abbot in the morning. “Will we be destroyed?”
The abbot could not say, but he decided to take a pilgrimage to find out. As he walked for days and days, down from his mountain and into the hidden lands, he meditated, hoping that he would find guidance. He saw an image of these great waterfalls, of the pool beneath, and of three rainbows. He decided he would go to the place in his visions. He had arrived and now he would meditate.
“Ommmmm,” he said.
He pictured the ferocious protector-spirits of Tibet, in all their many forms. He pictured Dorjee Drakden. He pictured the Chitipati, the dancing skeleton twins who guard the burial grounds of eternity and protect the righteous from thieves. The Chitipati feared nothing, not even the other spirits. If the abbot could meditate on them to defeat fear, then so could all his monks, and so could all people. It was a big task he’d set for himself. He would need to concentrate. This was some of the hardest meditation a person could do. It was dangerous to invoke the ferocious protectors if you were not ready. He lit another butter lamp.
“Ommmm,” he said. “Ommmmm.”
“Ahhhhhhh,” he heard in response. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
His heart quickened. Could this be the response he had hoped for? Could this be the answer of the gods? What did it mean?
“Ommmmmm,” he said again.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” he heard again. And again. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
The voice was not from his head. It came from behind him. He sighed. His concentration was broken. All this strange shouting was quite distracting. He turned toward the falls to see what all the trouble was about.
Just then, he saw a small form fly over the edge. It looked like a monk shouting and waving his arms frantically. Behind the monk another small form fell, shouting. This one looked like a child with a school backpack. And it was tied to the monk. And then a third form, tied to the other two, also plunged over the edge of the falls. That one looked like a little girl. All three shouted as they fell.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
He watched the three figures, flailing and falling through the water and the mist, as they crashed into the deep pool. He waited to see what would happen next. Just as three heads popped out of the water, choking and gagging, he saw that the rainbow above them had split into three, just like he had seen in his vision.
This is what he was meant to see. These three figures would end the nightmares that had plagued his monks and would restore the protector to his place. The abbot packed up his lamps and rose. He had a long trek back to his monastery on the icy mountain. He could hardly wait to tell his followers the good news.
He couldn’t actually imagine how a monk and two children had come to crash over the Hidden Falls, nor how they would be of any help, but he had long ago learned not to question the wisdom of dreams or rainbows, and certainly not to interfere with their plans.
He took one last look across the water, being careful not to be seen, and watched as the children climbed out of the water and yanked the sopping wet monk out behind them. They slumped down on the bank, exhausted, and the abbot was again tempted to run over and bless them, to ask them who they were and why they were there. He wanted to help them. But he resisted. All would be clear in time, he told himself, and they had their own journey to complete. He turned and started his trek out of the valley, walking as fast as he could. The three rainbows faded behind him.
